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indirectly by relieving the Chinese of some of their respon- sibilities in the north they are unlikely to assist directly in an attack on Hong Kong.
THE SCALE AND NATURE OF AN ATTACK
7. We believe that should global war occur between now and 1960, the greatest advantage to the Communist leaders would be to take the initiative and exploit surprise to the utmost. They would therefore aim at achieving surprise for the ir main strategic nuclcar attack on the U.S. and Allied bases overseas and would subordinate all other preparations to achieve this end. Hong Kong could only therefore expect immediate attack by those forces already in position to lauuch an assault at the time this strategic attack was delivered.
8. If, however, global war broke out after a period of mounting tension permitting preparations to be made the communists would be able to build up their forces sufficiently, in their view, to ensuro · rapid success.
THE BASIC THREAT TO HONG KONG
9. We have therefore examined the throat in two separate cases the details of which are given in the Appendix:-
(a) Surprise attack by forces in position.
(b) Attack with full preparation.
10. Surprise Attack by forces in position. In the event of global war starting by surprise we consider that the immediate threat to Hong Kong would be one of small scale air attacks against military and civilian targets, together with minor naval operations by MTBS, saboteurs and mining against ships using the port. We would expect these attacks to be combined with acts of sabotage and terrorism on immediate local initiative. From their present positions Chinese land forces could not launch a large scale surprise attack. We consider however, that we should receive at least 48 hours warning of an attack by the one army of 50,000 men in the East River arca. We could expect similar warning of any amphibious assault w. ich would not, in any event, exceed 10-15,000 men.
11.
Attack after full preparation. In the case of an attack after full preparation we believe that the air throat would bo no greater in scale than that shewn in paragraph 10 above but that attacks would be better co-ordinated; the naval threat would be on an increased scale and would include escorts and amphibious forces, possibly supported by a small force of cruisers and des- royors: the land throat would probably be increased to a max- fmum of two armies, totalling 100,000 men. Positioning of the extra naval and military forces would give up to 7 days warning of the impending assault. In addition to these attacks we would expect attempts at large scale sabotage and terrorism designed to disrupt the internal administration and interfere with military preparatione and operations.
12.
THE REDUCTION OF THE THREAT
In the light of the basic threat summarised in the preceding paragraphs we have carried out a study of the targets nuclear attack on which might help to reduce to a minimum the scale of the Chinese offensive.
13. These targets come under three general heading: airfields land battle tactical targets and naval targets. We have assumed Page 83 00154C (56)4(Final)
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